Dope in jail: It’s not just for smugglers

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Tony Low was arrested for driving a stolen truck and found himself charged with bringing drugs into jail — a baggie of methamphetamine that a guard found in one of Low’s socks during a booking search.

Hit with a four-year increase in his sentence, Low claimed the law, which dates from 1941, was aimed at dope-smugglers — visitors, guards and inmates who intended to carry a stash to boost their spirits or their income behind bars. It surely couldn’t have been intended to punish someone who had no intention of going to jail in the first place, Low’s lawyers argued.

Sorry, the state Supreme Court told Low on Thursday, but you chose to carry the meth in the first place and didn’t mention it to the guard before he searched you.

As Justice Marvin Baxter put it in the unanimous ruling, “Nothing supports (Low’s) suggestion that he was forced to bring drugs into jail, that commission of the act was engineered by the police, or that he had no choice but to violate” the law.

Low was arrested in Solano County in June 2005 by a sheriff’s deputy who saw him driving on Interstate 80 at speeds of up to 100 mph, the court said. As he passed the officer’s car, Low, for unexplained reasons, waved a water bottle that carried a law enforcement emblem. The deputy checked his computer, learned that the truck had been reported stolen, and caught up with Low on a dead-end street.

A jury convicted Low of driving the truck without the owner’s consent and carrying meth into jail. He’s serving a sentence of seven years and eight months in prison.